The Sock Queen of Alabama
A heart warming story of American Made, involving free range hosiery, a disenfranchised heiress and a determination to do things better.
Let me introduce you to Steven Kurutz, for this is his story. It features in his excellent new book American Flannel, How a band of entrepreneurs are bringing the art and business of making clothes back home in which Steven hints at a revival of the American Dream. You can’t have missed that this is election year in the US, and the hollowed out manufacturing base that contributed to Trump’s election in 2016 is still a live issue. As it is here in the UK and Europe. If you read JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy and loved it, if you are interested in sustainable manufacturing, or if you are looking for a book to inform, transport and inspire you, read on.
Steven has kindly given It’s Not Sustainable subscribers an excerpt from his new book about Gina, the daughter of a couple who were making a good living in the sock capital of America (this was a thing). You can skip to it below, but I think Steven’s motivations for writing this book are also interesting. I first came across him as we both covered the story about Bayard Winthrop, the founder of American Giant, who reconnected America’s cotton supply chain to make high quality hoodies and flannel shirts, (The New Vanguard of Quality, below).
Steven is from a small town in Pennsylvania, deep in America’s rust belt. It was a manufacturing town that lost its industry in the late 70s, the consequences of which Steven witnessed first hand growing up. “Growing up the way I did, I am constantly asking questions about what we owe to workers, what we owe to communities, what is sustainable - what is the definition of good consumerism,” he told me. “Bayard’s flannel shirt said larger things about the country. Apparently we hadn’t made a flannel shirt here since the 90s - shocking, as it’s such an iconic, foundational garment for American style. It shows us what has been lost in terms of manufacturing, and how people feel about this trade off where Americans have sent their jobs to low cost, foreign countries in exchange for cheap TVs at Walmart, or $29.99 pairs of jeans. Low quality things, but cheap. How do we feel about that?”
Like Hillbilly Elegy, American Flannel paints a picture of a lost demographic - lost crafts, lost ways of life. As Trump prepares to take on Biden, this issue is back. “In rural North Carolina or Pennsylvania or Buffalo where my mother grew up, people remember how vibrant those towns and cities were, and felt that loss when those industries left.”
In the early eighties, 70% of American clothes were domestically made, today almost none are.
“Apparel is an industry that has relied on ever cheaper labour,” observes Steven. “It started in New England, then it went to the south, then Central America, then South America, then Asia - and now there’s talk about Africa. In terms of consumers, the average American worker effectively has not had a raise in more than 40 years. What happened is that companies grew richer, and the trick was, you’re not going to get a raise but you can have cheap debt and cheap products. At Walmart and Amazon you can get a $60 pair of work boots rather than a $250 pair of work boots.
“After Trump there was a wake up about what we have done. Back in 2016 the Republicans talked about it a lot. Biden has carried it on, passing an infrastructure bill to build huge semi conductor factories here. I can’t speak to what’s going on inside corporate boardrooms like GAP, Ralph Lauren or Levis, but they should be having that conversation there. Bigger brands can use economies of scale to help bring those things back - if one of those brands committed to making a decent amount of jeans here in America, we might have more than one weaving mill capable of making them and the price of those jeans may come down.”
But the temperature is changing. Steven notes that in New York, LA and San Francisco, “there has been a movement to be more sustainable. Of buying quality, buying once, buying things to last. But then just when you thought things couldn’t get cheaper and crappier, along comes Shein to show you, yes they can.”
Let’s stop them Steven, let’s stop them!
The Sock Queen of Alabama
Extracted from AMERICAN FLANNEL: How a Band of Entrepreneurs Are Bringing the Art and Business of Making Clothes Back Home, you can buy a copy here.
Fort Payne is a small city in Alabama. It is hailed as the birthplace of the cushioned sock and at one point was said to be making one in every 8 pairs of socks sold anywhere in the world. Over 100 hosiery mills ran 24 hours a day, “For a full century, going back to the early 1900s, life in the little metropolis of 15,000 people revolved around sock making,” writes Steven. “There was a job in the mills for whoever wanted one.” And it was a family business: “Mom in finishing, Dad in knitting, brothers and sisters in the dyehouse.”
The rest of this is for my paying subscribers. If you would like to read on please do subscribe - it’s the price of a coffee. (Or you could just buy Steven’s book).